For Twitter Promotion, How Twitter Mentions are Chosen

Twitter mentions in promo-tweets are simply a nice way to recognize and thank the "news spotters" or authors who have contributed to your paper. 

There are two kinds of paper.li mentions that may be added to your tweet: either the "news spotter" (i.e. the person who shared the link) or the author of the article.  The kind of mention will depend on whether you are sharing the paper URL or the top article URL.

Sharing the paper URL

How mentions are chosen by Paper.li

The mentions in a promo tweet are selected by us at the time your paper is updated and if you are sharing the paper URL, the mention will be a news spotter from anywhere on your first page of your paper.

We have a rule that eliminates any news spotter from being mentioned twice within a 48 hour period. Therefore, if all of your news spotters have already been mentioned in another paper.li promo tweet within the past 48 hours, we will not place any mentions in a promo tweet. 

Mentions may vary from the example mentions shown in settings

When you view the default promo-tweet or  customize your tweet, we will show you example mentions. The mentions shown in the displayed tweet are examples only and may not necessarily be the same mentions that will appear in the final tweet at the time your paper updates.

Why? Because between the time you modified your tweet, edited your paper and/or re-fetched new articles, it is possible that the @username has already been mentioned in another paper.li promo-tweet or is no longer found on the front page of your paper.

Sharing the top article URL

There's a second type of mention when sharing the top article URL on twitter: author mentions!

When sharing the top article link, you can turn on "Mention the author" and if we are able to detect the author's twitter handle, we will include the author as a mention. What a great way to expand your twitter reach! 

Opting out of mentions

It is also possible for a "news spotter" or author to opt out of being mentioned in our promo-tweets. If they have placed themselves on our "no mentions" list, we won't place them as mentions in Paper.li promo-tweets.